Title of Presentation: The Operations of Well-Being: How Operations Interacts with Happiness, Equity, and Sustainability

Abstract:

 What does well-being have to do with operations? Well-being encompasses a lot: Are we happy as individuals? Are groups treated fairly? Is society sustainable? Operations management has many impacts on well-being at each of these levels, some more obvious than others. This talk will offer a wide-ranging exploration of linkages between operations and well-being. It organizes "operations" into five broad areas: pace and productivity, predictability and probability, process and prevention, performance and payment, and pollution and protection. For each of those, it explores what makes individuals (un)happy, what is fair, and what is sustainable. Operations cannot solve all societal problems but the links between quality of operations and quality of life are more numerous and nuanced than we usually realize.

Bio

Charles Corbett, Ph.D., is professor of Operations Management and Sustainability at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and holds a joint appointment at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability. He served as Chairman and Deputy Dean of Academic Affairs from 2009‐2012, and previously as Associate Dean of the MBA program. He is the founder and co‐director of the award‐winning UCLA Leaders in Sustainability graduate certificate program and founding director of the Easton Technology Leadership Program. His areas of teaching include operations of entrepreneurs and small business, sustainability, operations management, and supply chain management. His 2006 study on sustainability in the motion picture industry was featured in media outlets worldwide, including CNN, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, The Guardian, La Opinion, and various radio and TV stations. In 2013 he was elected a lifetime Fellow of the Production and Operations Management Society.

Professor Corbett holds a Ph.D. in Production and Operations Management from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, and a Drs. in Operations Research from Erasmus University Rotterdam (Netherlands).